L.A. County to Draft Guide for Gay Bathhouses

Specific “safe sex” guidelines that gay bathhouses would either have to follow or risk closure as public health hazards will be drafted in an attempt to curb the spread of AIDS, Los Angeles County’s health services director said Tuesday.

Director Robert C. Gates told the Board of Supervisors that state law empowers him to close bathhouses that he believes are contributing to the epidemic of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome disease by permitting unsafe sexual activity. But Gates, who said he inspected three gay bathhouses last week, said he is not advocating a wholesale closure of the 19 or 20 bathhouses and sex clubs operating in the county.

Supervisors, meanwhile, postponed for two weeks any decision on what to do about the bathhouses. Despite a downward spiral in patronage since the AIDS virus was discovered three years ago, the bathhouses have become a highly visible symbol in recent weeks of the spread of the deadly disease.

In a related action, the Los Angeles City Council’s public health committee asked the city attorney and bathhouse operators to meet with Gates’ staff about the bathhouse issue.

Difficulties Outlined

Police and city attorney representatives told the council panel that the city has little power to regulate the 13 gay bathhouses operating in the city through criminal prosecutions or business license terminations.

“It’s a medical problem, best handled medically,” Assistant City Atty. Lewis Unger said.

Gates’ decision to draft guidelines parallels recommendations adopted last week by the county Public Health Commission. It also follows recent efforts in San Francisco and New York to shut down bathhouses that reportedly have permitted high-risk sexual activity to occur.

The growing pressure to do something about the bathhouses took a surprise twist last weekend when the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA), an influential gay-oriented political organization, called for voluntary closure of such establishments because of the possible part they play in the spread of AIDS.

Gates told reporters that the guidelines will probably require bathhouse owners to prominently post information on what high-risk sexual activity is associated with AIDS. The virus has been primarily transmitted through the exchange of semen and other bodily fluids during anal or oral intercourse, through dirty hypodermic needles and through blood transfusions, health experts said.

Privacy Rooms at Issue

He said the bathhouses might also be expected to eliminate or modify their so-called privacy rooms, where high-risk sexual activity is believed to occur. Although he said his department has no direct evidence that these rooms are being used for such activity, Gates said, “I don’t think there is any serious doubt that this type of activity is occurring.”

The county’s top health official said once the guidelines are in place, the bathhouses would have to adhere to them or risk being shut down. Gates said closure would follow evidence that the establishments were permitting high-risk sexual activity.

It is unclear how such evidence would be gathered, but Gates said the county might adopt San Francisco’s approach, in which bathhouse owners themselves engage in self-policing.

He conceded that if the bathhouses curb the high-risk activity, it “is likely some of the same (high-risk) acts will occur elsewhere.”

“I’m not saying this would be a panacea,” Gates said, but added that if patrons who might engage in high-risk sexual activities learn about the dangers, they might decide to engage in “safe” sex.

Although AIDS has not been confined to homosexuals, in Los Angeles County most of the nearly 1,200 reported victims of the disease have been gay. About half of those victims have died.